New York State Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg (left) with his wife ellen stand at the welcoming banner at Angela’s House in East Moriches with Robert and Angie Policastro. The first group home on Long Island to provide 24-hour nursing care for medically frail and technology-dependent children, Angela’s house is the product of a ten-year effort by Robert Policastro, Angela’s father. Read More
Press/Videos
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Wednesday, July 12th, 2000
Able Newspaper: Angela’s House Opens
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Thursday, October 21st, 1999
Village Times: One Family’s Suffering Prompts Effort to Help Others
Any parent who has been up all night with a child who is tearful, ill and distressed knows how exhausting caregiving can be. But what happens when caregiving never ends? What happens when a child is fragile, brain damaged, attached to feeding tubes, unable to recognize anyone and has a short life expectancy? What is the impact on families? Read More
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Tuesday, September 28th, 1999
Newsday: Tightening the Family Ties
Most of them are children who cannot feed themselves, sustain eye contact or show convincingly that they know their own mothers’ faces. Sometimes they seem to know them, sometimes they don’t. In another age, most probably would not be alive.
There are thousands of kids like them, kids whose lives were spared thanks to the miracle of modern medicine – but with strings attached: feeding tubes, tracheostomies, brain damage, lives so fragile they will be in the hospital more often than not, or need 24-hour nursing care, for the duration. Read More
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Sunday, March 23rd, 1997
Newsday: Children Too Far From Home
Pedrom Palazzo is a 5-year-old boy who has spent more time in hospitals than he has at home. Though he cannot hold a toy, or speak, or see, he recognizes the voices of his parents when they visit him at the Cardinal Hayes Home for Children in upstate Milbrook, two hours from his East Meadow home. Read More
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Sunday, March 26th, 1995
Newsday: Who Will Notice One Less Link?
The most dedicated professionals cannot always understand 11-year-old Jacklyn Messina the way her parents, Lucille and Karl, do. Jacklyn has the mental capacity of a 1-month old, and she is blind, but her parents know when she is in a good mood, and they know when her braces are pinching her legs, and they know a thousand things that have no words but which, taken together, form the outline of the personality of their only child. Read More
